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An Address -ryne 



Col Daniel R, Ballou, 



OF PROVIDE-NCE, 



IN TOWN HALL, BRISTOL, R. I., 



# Bdcoration * E)AY, # 

MAY 30TH, 1882. 



Published Under the Auspices of the 

]|nistol )^eteFarj^ssociation< 



BRISTOT., R. I. : 

BRISTOL PHCENIX JOB PRINT. 

1882. 



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ADDRESS. 



My Fellow-Comrades, Ladies and Gextlemen: 

The circling years are swiftly beai'ing us beyond and afar from 
the warlike scenes which Ave commemorate on this day of glorious 
memories and heart-touching ceremonies, and we are sadly re- 
minded that the stirring events in which you, my comrades, j^ar- 
ticipated, — to us the familiar scenes of yesterday, — ai'e, to the gen- 
erations pressing on to man's estate, but the wonderful incidents 
of history, or the stranger revelations of tradition. 

Silently, as the flowers of the dawning summer unfold their 
beauty and exhale their fragrance, the soldiers of the grand 
armies who achieved the national honor and unity, and gave to 
its history an imperishable glory, are rapidly passing from the 
theati'eof their great deeds, to join the shadowy thi'oug that files 
in ceaseless procession out into the boundless realms beyond the 
stars. When the door of the tomb shall close upon the last of the 
survivors of the Nation's defenders, will the same little flags mark 
the resting-places of our hero dead ? Will loving hands, moved 
by grateful hearts, strew them Avith sweet flowers, and wreathe 
the monuments of those who fell on fields of honor with emblems, 
of glory and love ? It is hard to believe that these affectionate 
remembrances will fade away amid the onward surge and whirl 
of the Nation's progress. But these observances will cease, while 
the Nation will, as it has in the past, grapple with the great 
issues of the future, as it rises and falls upon the great tide of 
events. 

As the Nation moves grandly and surely forward to its great 
destiny, a hundred years are but a single day in the purpose of 
its life. When its population has grown to a full hundred mil- 



lion its immeasurable resources will yet be unexplored, its vast 
territory yet unsettled. Who can measure the experiences 
through which it will pass, or foresee the events before which the 
past, with all its glory and its pomp, is but the skirmish line to the 
opening conflict ? You must, therefore, my comrades, bow sub- 
missively to the inevitable, and rely upon the remembrances of 
liistory for your rewards and your honors. When you shall have 
passed away, and not one of your glorious number is left to tell 
the story of your valiant deeds, tradition will vaguely point to 
your neglected graves, as they slowly disappear beneath the soul- 
less heel of advancing time; — then, 

" Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, 
And with your puissant arm renew tlieir feats; 
You are their heir, you sit upon their throne; 
The blood and courage that renowned them 
Runs in your veins." 

Let us then rise to the higher sentiment of the hour, and let 
these touching rites teach the lesson that the order by which they 
were decreed wisely intends. While we point to the glorious 
deeds of our dead comrades in arms, and tell the story 

" Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach," 

and of their stern devotion to their country and its flag, the fires 
of patriotism will kindle in the youthful heart, and awaken within 
it a love of country that shall redound to its future greatness, its 
honor, and its glory. With what awe-inspiring emotions have 
you not looked upon some war relic of the Revolution? An old 
rust-eaten flint-lock musket, and heavy enough for modern ord- 
nance, had often inspired you with pati'iotic thoughts, and a pair 
of leather breeches thrown you into transports of enthusiasm. 
How many times have I in my childhood hung upon the lips of 
an aged woman who was wont to relate scenes and events of the 
Revolution which she had witnessed in her youth. 

It was as the voice of one from amid the scenes glorified by the 
heroic deeds of the fathers of the Republic. What soldier did not, 
amid the fire and carnage of the red stained battle-fields of the 
war, feel his blood quicken at the thought of Bunker Hill^ of 
Lexington, and Yorhtoxim! So will the future heroes of the 



Republic, amid the surging blood-'waves of the fiery conflict, as 
the red spray of battle breaks over them, feel their courage 
strengthened and their hearts grow stouter, at the thought of 
Antietam^ of Gettysburg, and the Wilderness. Let us then con- 
tinue these annual observances, not in the spirit of self-glorifica- 
tion and display, but rather that we may inspire in the minds of 
the young a veneration for the deeds of the brave men who sac- 
rificed their lives upon the altar of the country that their coun- 
try might live, that the same noble sentiment and purpose may 
animate them in the hour of national peril ; then, as upon each 
recurring year, when the unfolding summer, radiant as the rarest 
jewel in setting of emeralds, yields its wealth of clustering fresh- 
ness and fragrance, let us gather its choicest treasures, and, weav- 
ing them into garlands and wreaths, bear them with reverent 
steps, and tenderly place them upon the cherished graves of our 
dead comrades. Then you may cherish the hope that when the 
last survivor of the loyal soldiers of the Union shall have re- 
sponded to the final roll-call, that shall summon him to the realms 
of eternal peace, your children and your children's children 
may with the same reverent hands and grateful hearts gather the 
same heaven-kissed blossoms, and strew them with affectionate 
remembrances upon the soil that covers you. You, surviving 
comrades; you, sonless fathers; and you, childless and widowed 
mothers, when you have returned to your homes with the tear- 
stains fresh upon your cheeks, gather the young about you and 
tell them the story of that eventful period in our country's his- 
tory which we this day commemorate. Tell them how your sons 
and your husbands, your fathers and your brothers, reared amid 
the happy atmosphere of peace and the comforts of home, sprang 
to the ranks of Father Abraham's three hundred thousand more, 
and how amid the smoke and red glare of battle they yielded 
their precious lives a willing sacrifice upon the altar of their 
country, that they may be taught 

" How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand, 
In front of battle, for their native land." 

A nation's glory and strength and greatness lie in the love which 
inspires its people. With a nation founded upon the true princi- 
ples of justice, of humanity and mercy, this sentiment of devo- 



tion will abidein the hearts of its people, so that when confronted 
by dangers or menaced by foes, stimulated by love of country 
and inspired by the deeds of its heroes, they will render it invin- 
cible and unconquerable. The American Republic was estab- 
lished by the fathers upon the grand principles of liberty and 
equality. Love of country thus became the crowning virtue of 
the people, so that when the hour of suj)reme danger came, ani- 
mated by this sentiment and inspired by the invincible valor 
which the loyal soldiers of the Republic have displayed upon a 
hundred battle-fields, treason fell like a broken reed before tlie 
unconquerable spirit of the national arms. 

One stands apj^alled as he scans the awful record whereon is 
inscribed the vast sum of i:)recious lives and treasure that it cost 
to preserve the heritage of human liberty. We bow in sadness, 
and our tears moisten the graves of our dead comrades, as we 
recall the seas of blood that deluged our unhappy country, and 
the cries of human woe and anguish that rose from every fireside 
during the starless night of our national peril. It was a fearful 
cost, but the results were well worth the sacrifice. After seven- 
teen years of peace, you, my comrades, understand the magnitude 
and the significance of the results that have followed the war. 
Whatever may be said of the terrors and inhumanities of war, — 
and it is an event to be deplored, and if possible, averted, — yet 
it is historically true that nearly all the great reforms in national 
progress have been accomplished through its dread arbitrament. 
The right of trial by jurj'^ was secured to the English jjeople only 
after a hundred years of bloodshed and devastating war. Chris- 
tianity established itself upon the crumbling ruins of Paganism 
after centuries of bloody strife and persecution. Protestantism 
in ils turn suffered the same bloody experience, the appalling- 
events of which are almost within the recollection of a living 
generation. "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again," so out 
of the blood of the innocents the Prince of Peace has revealed 
Himself a clearer promise to benighted man. 

Our own early history illustrates still further the lesson of war's 
effect upon human events. A weak province of four million souls 
waged with unequal hand a sanguinaiy conflict of seven years' 
duration against the mightiest empire of the world, but the 



spirit of human liberty was invincible before the proud legions of 
the haughty Briton. I need not recite to you the grand results 
of the terrible conflict in which you, my comrades, played so im- 
portant a part ; they are fresh in your recollections. There are 
other results that followed the war, to which I desire to briefly 
call your attention. For the past twenty years the volunteer 
soldier has been a conspicuous figure in the progress of national 
events, not as the representative fighting man who has extended 
the domain of his professional calling to the plane of art, but as 
a sort of missionary, who has quickened the pulse of enterprise, 
and of moral and intellectual growth. As we turn backandglance 
at the record of twenty years ago, we shall be more than ever 
surprised at the rapid strides we have made as a people, not only 
in culture but in material development and prosperity. When 
tlie war broke out, the average citizen of the North received his 
brother of the South as a sort of cadaverous, lantern-jawed speci- 
men of humanity, with long flowing hair, Avho breakfasted and 
dined on fire, a kind of volcanic arsenal, bristling with revolvers 
and bowie-knives, to offend whom signified instant death and de- 
struction. With this picture in his mind, who can tell with what 
mingled emotions of duty and distrust the simple-minded back- 
woodsman of Maine, and the honest farmer of Vermont and 
New Hampshire, who had never been beyond the shadows of 
their balmy forests and rugged hills, enlisted to fight such 
monsters upon their own vantage ground. While on the other 
hand, our brothers of the sunny South, less favored by education 
than were we of the North, believed either that we were a mob 
of cowards, or that we were a sort of nondescript, with hoofs and 
horns. It was once related to me by a Northern man, then resid- 
ing in Georgia, that he was stopping in Atlanta, early in the war, 
and in a conversation with the landlady where he lodged, was in- 
formed in apparent sincerity, that the Yankees had horns^ that 
they were coming down to steal the niggers, and that they, the 
people in Atlanta, were going to raise men enough in that place 
to go up North and kill the whole crowd. This good lady doubt- 
less got her information corrected before Sherman commenced 
his memorable excursion from that now enterprising and historic 
city to the sea. How changed is all this now ; the honest toilers 



of the North went out from their farms, their workshojjs and 
their factories, and met their Southern countrymen on the field, 
and though armed foes they learned to resjiect each other. At 
the same time the soldier from the far West fraternized with the 
soldier of the East, and each shared with the other the hardships 
of the field and the march, A new world was revealed to the 
soldiei', and the current of his thoughts quickly turned into a new 
and broader channel. Within him was awakened a clearer un- 
derstanding of his relations to his country, and an enlarged sense 
of his capabilities, induced by intercourse with his comrades in 
arms, and the knowledge acquired of his country and its people. 
Thus were ancient prejudices and false notions soon leveled by the 
rough experiences of Avar, At the close of the war very many 
discharged soldiers from New England sought homes in the South 
or in the far West, and thus the spirit of national enterprise and 
progress has been quickened and vitalized by the infusion of New 
England thrift and life into the national veins. The result has 
been that the country has advanced in material development and 
wealth to a point fifty years beyond what it would have attained 
without the quickening effects of the war. 

For a moment let your imagination take flight with me to the 
great central elevation that overlooks the continent. From these 
heights let your eyes sweep its broad expanse of mountain and 
prairie, of lake and river. Give your mind free rein, that it may 
compass the magnitude and vastness of the national domain. 
Then mark the monuments of human industry and enterprise 
that almost rival the fairy tales of the Arabian JSrights, Far 
away from where the shadows of the great continental divide 
whereon you stand fall upon the plains below, even unto the 
shining shores of the blue Atlantic, you behold spread out before 
you the vast field wherein the American people are working out 
the great problem of self-government. Scattered over it almost 
as thickly as the stars that stud the arching heavens, are its great 
cities and towns, the seats of its commerce, its manufactures, 
and its schools. The smoke of its great workshops, of its steam- 
vessels that cleave the vast waters of its lakes and rivers, and of 
the ten thousand locomotives that speed up and down the net- 
work of railways that thread its smiling valleys, almost obscure 



9 

tlie vision, and yon bend the ear to catch the great throb and 
pulsation of the national heart, as it rises and falls to the meas- 
ured current of activity that moves the national life, but no 
sound breaks the profound stillness of the mountain air. Now 
let your astonished eyes trace those dark lines threading their 
converging ways across the great Father of Waters, up and 
over the broad plains that rise in gentle undulations to the alti- 
tudes whereon you stand, thence down through the desert wastes 
of the great valley beyond, now winding along the crests of lofty 
mountains, and now skirting the shadowy depths of frightful 
caiions, and you will behold two great lines of continental rail- 
way stretching from ocean to ocean. Far away to the eastward 
you can trace two or three other lines in process of construction, 
pushing rapidly across to the great Pacific, to where its mighty 
waters are yet scarcely fretted by the winged messengers that 
shall in the future freight its golden shores with the wealth of 
Eastern Asia and the great islands of her distant seas. 

Now let your eyes, inspired by these magnificent scenes of hu- 
man courage and skill, sweep down the great mountain chain that 
rears its snowy peaks in majestic silence far above the rifted 
clouds, and the same marvelous exhibition of human enterjjrise 
and industry is visible, skirting their dizzy altitudes, over whose 
steel-girt tracks will soon be borne to the home of the Aztecs 
the more progressive civilization of the j|\.merican Republic. 
Clearly identified with this last great enterprise, you recognize 
the typical citizen-soldier of the Republic, whom the nations of 
the earth with one accord proclaim the greatest Captain of the 
age, and whom as a comrade in arms we all love and delight to 
honor. Such are some of the grand results of American reso-r 
lution and enterprise that mark the era succeeding the war. 
The great system of trans-continental railways which stretch 
across the continent, had its inception in the national necessities 
by which it was greatly embarrassed during the period of the 
Civil War. The keen foresight of American statesmen clearly 
saw that the territories lying west of the Rocky Mountains even 
unto the Pacific coast, were, on account of their remoteness from 
the great centre of poiDulation, in serious peril, and might be again. 
Had the South been able to have held out until France could have 



10 

secured a permanent foothold in Mexico, what might not have 
been the fate of the southwestern territories and the whole Pa- 
cific coast? In view, therefore, of a great national necessity, as 
well as to open up the vast resources of a continent to the be- 
nign influences of civilization, the government generously lent its 
aid to the prosecution of these great works, until now, at the 
end of less than a score of years, the remote and most 
inaccessible confines of the national domain are, or soon 
will be, tapped by a magnificent system of trans-continental 
railways. With a foreign foe menacing the vast coast line of the 
Pacific, or moving towards our border from Mexico or British 
America, the government can move its troojjs from the Atlantic 
seaboard and set them down at the remotest point in the Repub- 
lic within the limits of a week. Who can estimate the magnitude 
of the sum of wealth and strength and happiness that will in the 
future flow from these great works, to bless the future generations 
of our beloved country. While these advantages have ensued as 
compensation for the great sacrifices Avhich the Nation has suf- 
fered, the lessons that war has taught us have been no less in- 
structive and valuable. It gave us what we lacked before as a 
people — confidence, self-reliance, and knowledge of our strength. 
When the Civil War was j^recipitated upon us we were wanting 
in the experience and discipline of maturer years. Our growth 
had been rapid and almost abnormal. We had devoted our- 
selves and our energies rather to the acquisition of wealth and 
the arts of peace, than to the cultivation of warlike pursuits and 
the development of the national prowess. But the exigency of 
civil war which suddenly precipitated itself upon the people, 
although it appalled us, soon proved that the fathers had builded 
the structure of government upon a true and firm foundation. 
It did not appeal in vain for support, for it rested Upon the intel- 
ligence and in the affections of the people. Never before in the 
history of nations had great armies been recruited, equipped and 
sent into the field so quickly. On the 15th of April, 1861, the 
gallant war-governor of Rhode Island telegraphed Citizen Burn- 
side : " A regiment of Rhode Island troops will go to Washing- 
ton this week ; how soon can you come on and take command ? " 
The answer flashed back : " At once." Such was the spirit of 



11 

readiness that seemed to animate and move the loyal people of 
the Nation to fight for their country and its flag. The nations of 
Europe, schooled in the science of war, tlieir faith and confidence 
in the stability of their systems firmly fixed by the decrees of 
history and the issues of an hundred wars, rich, proud and pow- 
erful, turned their eyes upon the spectacle of the opening con- 
flict with ominous prophecies of defeat and disintegration, but 
these predictions were soon succeeded by wonder and amazement, 
as the armies of the Republic rapidly assumed the proportions 
and character of a standing army in numbers, discipline, and efii- 
ciency. But said they, " the Republic must fail in resources to 
equip and maintain such an army and prosecute so expensive a 
war." Thanks be to that little band of God-fearing men who 
had fled from the persecutions of kings and found a home on the 
inhospitable shores of New England, that they planted the seed 
of human freedom so cai-efuUy and covered it so deeply with the 
determined purpose of Puritan faith, that it had become ineradi- 
cably rooted in the hearts of the people, and down into the very 
soil of the Republic. 

"Amidst the storm they sang, 

The stars heard, and the sea. 
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 

To the anthems of the free." 

The supremest blessings of the war, and the crowning glory of 
the soldier of the Republic, do not lie in the merely physical ad- 
vantages that have flowed from it; they are of a higher and more 
far-reaching character, and concern the future welfare and stabil- 
ity of the Republic, upon which all its institutions, whether of gov- 
ernment or material enterprise, depend. 

Under the fostering protection of our system of government 
the country had during its brief existence grown rich, jjrosperous 
and happy. Yet the national character was tainted with a great 
crime against humanity, and the country was without a certain 
and fixed tenure of national existence. The final issue of the 
war, to secure which 3'ou, my comrades, contributed your manly 
strength, and pledged your sacred honors, wiped out that dark 
stain of dishonor, and gave to the Republic a full and rounded 
national manhood, one country and one flag, a constellation of 



12 

sovereign states united and indivisible. The war served another 
equally high purj^ose by elevating us to a still higher plane of in- 
tellectual growth. Isolated as we were before the war from any 
general intei'course with the older and more polished civilizations 
of Europe, and whatever we enjoyed being mainly of a purely 
commercial character, we had grown up wedded to our idols, and 
what Europeans would call provincial in thought and habit. We 
were not unknown to literature, for we had Irving, and Haw- 
thorne, and Holmes, and Holland, and Taylor, and Bryant, and 
Whittier, and Longfellow, and Emerson ; in art we had a few 
worthily known to fame, and in science, some of the brightest 
stars that have thrown their penetrating light into great Nature's 
hidden mysteries and forces. With the war came wealth to all 
who wooed fortune's favors. With the acquisition of more evenly 
distributed wealth came a universal desire to travel, before which 
the gates of foreign lands flew open, and thousands of our coun- 
trymen thronged the streets of the great cities of Europe and 
her places of historic interest. Some went to observe, some for 
pleasure, some from idle curiosity, and some to study. While 
we incurred the severest criticisms of the refined circles in those 
countries, and the better class of our countrymen were unjustly 
represented, yet it has not been without incalculable benefit to 
us as a people. The mei*e friction of contact with another civil- 
ization excites a spii'it of emulation and broadens the higher 
ambitions and purposes. Vast sums were expended in works of 
art, and in the rare and unique products of the great workshops of 
Europe. Thus a taste for the beautiful began to spread through 
the land, and this in its turn inspired new and more refined in- 
tellectual aspirations. To him who during the past twenty years 
has been at all observant of the progress of the American peojjle 
in intellectual culture and refinement of taste, it has been truly 
marvelous. And for this advancement to a higher standard of 
mental excellence we are indebted to the quickening influences 
of the war. While we find these great compensations in what is 
an acknowledged national calamity, we must not forget the over- 
shadowing evils which war's demoralizing effects entail upon a 
people. It should be the duty of every true citizen to address 
himself to the srreat work of eradicating those evils and false doc- 



IS 

trines that have crept into the administration of public affairs, 
and which tend to corrupt our social life. The country needs the 
earnest efforts of its best citizens to bring the government back 
to its original purity, " A government of the j^eople, by the peo- 
ple, and for the people." What these evils and false doctrines 
are, this is neither the time nor the place to discuss. Each man 
of you in your own heart knows what they are. 

Neither should we permit ourselves to indulge in too much 
vain glory and boasting. We owe whatever of greatness and 
prosperity we enjoy as a nation to the practice in the affairs of 
government of the homely virtues of economy and honesty, and ad- 
herence to the principles of democratic sim23licity, which we have 
inherited from the fathers of the Republic. In the future, as in 
the past, they must be our hope and our reliance, and we must 
not, if we would perpetuate the Republic, depart from them. 

This day, my comrades, set apart for the expression of the Na- 
tion's sorrow and veneration for its valiant dead, appeals to you 
with unusual sadness, and its associations and memories reawaken 
the griefs that but lately wrung your hearts. When the unwel- 
come tidings reached us of the tragic shot of which our illus- 
trious comrade. President Garfield, was the unhappy victim, 
our shocked senses revolted with sickening and deadly grief ; it 
seemed as though the earth stood aghast in space, and the Nation's 
pulse had ceased to beat. As Bedford, stricken by the king's 
death, exclaimed : 

" Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night; 
Comets, importing change of time and states, 
Brandish yonr crystal tresses in the sky. 
And with them sconrge the bad revolting stars 
That have consented unto Henry's death." 

So fifty million loyal people cried out in yet more consuming 
sorrow, that so good, so pure, so noble a man should be so cruelly 
slain. In the supreme hour of grief, and through the long weary 
days of suspense, when his great soul hovered 'twixt life and the 
grim realms of death, the Nation's heart beat responsive to but a 
single thought, and the prayers of the just ascended to the throne 
of the Most High with but a single supplication ; but the im- 
measurable love of the Nation could not save the idol enshrined 



14 

in the affections of the people. While he yet lived and wrestled 
in his God-like strength with the dark angel of death, you, my 
comrades, were almost stunned by the crushing weight of a still 
greater personal grief ; a comrade-in-arms, the noblest in all the 
land, beloved of the Nation, honored by princes, chivalrous, 
valiant and gentle, was stricken down in the strength of his 
glorious manhood and in the midst of a brilliant career of honor 
and usefulness. His majestic form, his winning smile and mag- 
netic presence were familiar sights upon your streets and in your 
homes for many years before he was summoned hence to the 
soldier's eternal camping-ground, which lies beyond the scenes 
of this world's strifes and troubles. It is enough alone for Bris- 
tol's fame that he lived and died by the shining waters that 
break in murmuring requiem iipon the now desolate shores of 
his loved Edghill. When we are dead, and our graves shall 
become neglected and forgotten, his countrymen, and strangers 
from abroad, who have read the story of the hero of Newberne 
and Knoxville, will make jiilgrimages to his quaint home be- 
neath the shadows of Mount Hope, and do homage to his illus- 
trious name. I shall never forget, while memory lasts, that glo- 
rious morning preceding the battle on the heights of Fredericks- 
burg. A thousand battle-flags, rent and shot-torn, waved in the 
soft air of the beautiful December morning, and the burnished 
arms and equipments of the vast hosts shone resplendent beneath 
the bright rays of the rising sun. A thousand bugle-notes, mu- 
sical and clear, pierced the still air. These, with the rattling 
drums and the hoarse cries of command, were the only sounds 
that broke the stillness, save the steady tramp of the hurrying 
squad and advancing regiments. When the troops had formed, 
and the war-worn veterans of the grand Army of the Potomac 
stood in serried columns, grim and defiant, ready to hurl them- 
selves upon the waiting foe on the heights beyond, as I gazed on 
this never-to-be-forgotten scene of pomp and circumstance of 
war, it seemed to me that I had never before beheld so grand a 
sight. Suddenly I heard a great shout far up the line; nearer 
and yet nearer it came, until it could be heard passing from lip 
to lip, " Old Birney is coming ! Old Birney is coming ! " Mounted 
on his grand old war-horse, on which he sat every inch a king, 



15 

and followed by a brilliant staff, came General Burnside gallop- 
ing down the line. Never before had I listened to such shouts 
of affection and confidence, or witnessed such transports of joy- 
as welcomed our illustrious comrade, who was in command of 
that historic and valiant army. In that moment of supremest 
ecstasy of enthusiasm I felt compensated for all the hardships 
and sufferings of a soldier's life. I realized in that moment that 
the affection and confidence of the Old Guard for the great Napo- 
leon was not a fiction, but a romance of fact. No one saw our 
comrade but to love him, and so striking was his presence that 
to see him once was to ever after know him. No man among 
the fifty millions of his countrymen was more widely known and 
universally recognized and loved. Little children recognized 
him on the street, and in joyful accents spoke his name. I shall 
never forget when the tidings of his death became known upon 
the streets of my home ; how strong men turned pale, looked in 
each other's eyes and could not hide their tears. Children 
paused in their sports, and grief filled the hearts of all. His 
venerable colleague of the Senate, who had learned to love him 
as a brother, stricken by his sudden taking off, bowed beneath 
the crushing blow, and 

" His tears run down his beard like winter's drops 
From eaves of reeds." 

Burnside was preeminently a man of the people. Reared in 
the midst of poverty, as Garfield had been, he understood their 
needs, and his generous nature was always in sympathy with 
them in their distress and their sufferings, and in their honest 
efforts to elevate their condition. The people loved his open, 
frank, and generously truthful nature, and trusted him with a 
confidence that was beyond all parallel. The young cadet, who 
in sportive mischief invaded the strict discipline of the Acad- 
emy at West Point, foreshadowed the magnanimous character of 
the man. "I did it," said the cadet, " I am alone to blame." 

" For the failure in the attack I am responsible," said the com- 
manding general of a repulsed but not defeated army. Garfield 
and Burnside were in many respects alike. Both were sincerely 
devoted to principle and were conscientious in the discharge of 
public duty. Burnside was less a partisan than Garfield ; not that 



16 

he loved his party less or his country more than Garfield, bi;this 
generously imj^ulsive nature chafed under the restraints of pre- 
cedent and party discipline when they stood between him and the 
accomplishment of a just end and purpose. They were each of 
them magnificent types of American manhood. The Nation hon- 
ors itself as it strews fragrant flowers upon their freshly covered 
o-raves, still wet with the tears of a sorrowing people. While 
we recall the virtues and great services of those who are known 
to fame, we are not unmindful of those who in the ranks- bravely 
did a soldier's duty and found a soldier's grave, or lived to see the 
fruition of their work, and then died in the quiet and repose of 
peace. In the observance of these impressive rites there is nei- 
ther rank nor titles ; we are all comrades doing honor to the mem- 
ory of our hero dead. In the quiet and peaceful valleys and by the 
banks of the shining rivers of the sunny South, Avhere the red 
tide of battle ebbed and flowed, and the roar and crash of conflict 
rent the trembling heavens, now peacefully sleep the nameless 
heroes of the blue and the gray. The sun in the heavens looks 
down and smiles upon a reunited country, now prosperous and 
happy. While, therefore, with reverent steps we bear our floral 
tributes to where sleep our precious dead, and tenderly place them 
upon their cherished graves, " With malice towards none, but 
with charity for all," let us invoke the sweet spirit of forgive- 
ness; for are we not one people, with one country and one flag? 

Permit me for a moment to refer to those who, although they 
did not share the hardships and perils of a soldier's life, yet in a 
more peaceful sphere performed a service without which the 
Nation must have perished. While the soldier was the more con- 
spicuous figure towards which the anxious eyes of the Nation 
were turned when the issue of the great conflict hovered on the 
uncertain borders of victory and defeat, and while history accords 
him the glory with which the arms of the Republic were at length 
crowned, yet the soldier, in common with the impartial observers 
of the times, is not unmindful of the patriotic zeal, the untiring 
efforts and generous sacrifices of the American people in behalf 
of the national cause. The soldier looks back over the smiling, 
happy years of peace that lie between the present and the dark 
days of the Republic's peril, when he jauntily pinned his life upon 



It 

his sleeve, as one would toss his cap in air, and plunged into the 
wild storm of battle, and his chivalrous heart throbs with grate- 
ful emotion as he recalls those long, weary years of suspense and 
anxious waiting, during which the great heart of the Nation was 
a shield of strength and comfort to him amid the hardships and 
l>erils of the soldier's life. When he poised his rifle or grasped 
his sword-hilt amid the roar and carnage of the fight, or when he 
lay shot-torn and bleeding on the field, or languishing in prison 
or hospital, his arm grew stronger and his heart stouter at the 
thought that in him were centered the hopes of a nation. He 
knew that while he was periling his life in the service of his coun- 
try the prayers of a great people were ascending for his safety 
and deliverance, and that the noble men and women of his coun- 
try were caring for and comforting the dear ones whom he had 
left for his country's sake. The tireless zeal and the generous self- 
sacrificing efforts of the great body of the loyal American people, 
in raising, organizing and equipping troops, and providing for 
the soldier's loved ones, and the noble humanity of the American 
women who ministered, with the gentle tenderness of their sex, 
to the sick and dying soldier, are treasured in his heart as deeply 
and strongly as the current of his life. History has recorded 
their noble work in less glowing sentences than it has the war- 
like deeds of the soldier, but their services were hardly less effec- 
tive in compassing the enemies of the national life. All honor 
be to the memory of the noble men and women of the Republic 
who contributed to the Nation's cause or ministered to the sol- 
dier's needs. They have their reward in the grateful remem- 
brances of the Republic's defenders and in a country restored. 

This quaint old town, now wooed by the summer's sun and 
the gentle south winds, beneath whose sweet, refreshing breath 
the arching trees, musical with the songs of birds, bend their 
blooming branches, casts off its mantle of age, and in the fresh- 
ness and fragrance of vernal loveliness presents a jiicture of land- 
scape, and dancing wave, and of sky, surpassingly beautiful and 
fair. Of these Bristol may well be proud, but prouder still of a 
history that goes back to the centuries before the Puritan settle- 
ment of New England, to where tradition in shadowy lines traces 
the civilization of the adventurous Norseman, in the rude struc- 

3 



18 

tares which he reared, and in the language of the dusky native. 
Here was the home of the bravest and tlie noblest warrior of the 
Indian race. The sons of Bristol did valiant service for their 
country in its earlier days. Out ujjon the lovely blue waters of yon- 
der bay, and almost within a cannon-shot of this spot, liberty-lov- 
ing men of Providence, aided by the brave sons of Bristol, " all 
men of metal true," on the evening of June the ninth, 1772, 
struck the first blow for Freedom's cause, that opened the great 
struggle for human liberty uj^on this continent, by the cap- 
ture and burning of the " Gaspee." Her Byfield, her Church, her 
DeWolf, her Bradford, her Babbitt, and her Burnside, have given 
her a fame as imperishable as history, while her Bosworths, her 
Bournes, her Griswolds, her Dimans, her Bullocks, and her 
Blakes, and a score of others in the higher walks of civil and 
military life, shed lustre on her ancient name. But when she 
unfolds the numerous rolls whereon are inscribed the names of 
those whom she delights to honor, and whose memories she justly 
reveres, there is none that inspires in the hearts of her children a 
truer yet sadder pride than the roll of her valiant dead who 
served their country in the hour of its greatest peril. My com- 
rades, let us stand in the solemn presence which their names in- 
voke, and with sorrowing hearts and reverent lips call the roll 
of your precious dead. 

" On Fame's eternal camping ground, 
Their silent tents are spread, 
And glory guards with solemn round 
The bivouac of the dead. 

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, 

Nor time's remorseless doom, 
Can dim one ray of holy light 

That gilds your glorious tomb." 



19 



ROLL OF HONOR. 



Joseph Alger. 
Robert Anderson. 

Jacob Babbitt. 
Adam J. Bennett. 
Ambrose E. Burnside. 
Henry F. Bush. 
Anson B. Burnham. 
Wanton O. Bowers. 
William Burns. 
John Bullock. 

Archilaus Card. 
Robert Clough. 
Ezra S. Cheeseboro. 
Isaac N. Cobb. 
John Cameron. 
Benj. F. Congdon. 
John Collins. 
Henry Cole. 

John W. Dearth. 
Robert H. Dunbar. 
William Doty. 
Carlos DeWolf. 
John G. Dean. 

Geo. T. Easterbrooks. 
Richard Edwards. 
Napoleon B. Edwards, 
Henry Easterbrooks. 

Josephus Franklin. 
Benj. S. Fbnner. 
Charles Freeman. 
George S. Fitts. 

Edward Gee. 
George H. Gladding. 
James N. Gladding. 



Henry F. Gladding. 
Isaac Gorham. 
Wm. T. Gorham. 
Geo. W. Gladding. 

Isaac H. Hoar. 
Robert Hanerwell. 
Nathan B. Heath. 
Robert Hollow ay. 
Patrick Hearne. 

George S. Ingraham. 
James D. Ingraham. 

Samuel Kinder, Jr. 
William Kinder. 
Casander Kingman. 

Byron Liscomb. 
Theodore Lindsey. 
John P. Lindsey. 
Jeremiah Luther, Jr. 
Daniel G. Lake. 
Lorenz V. Ludwig. 
William Lawton. 

Isaac B. Manchester. 
Alex. H. Manchester. 
Benj. S. Munroe. 
Benj. F. Miller. 
Wm. a. Miller. 
Henry Marland. 
Richard McCartney. 
Alfred McIntire. 
George Mutton. 
Barney McCabe. 
James G. Mason. 
Alexander McKenzie. 
Joseph Manchester. 



George Maxfield. 
James M. Munro. 

Simeon A. Newman. 

George M. Pierce. 
Allen Pierce. 
Spencer Pratt. 
John Potter. 
Benjamin Peckham. 

Richard Rose. 
Gilbert Richmond. 

Richard Skinner. 
Alfred P. Sis.son. 
RuFus Shippee. 
Wm. L. Shippee. 
George Slade. 
John P. Salisbury. • 

Nicholas Tillinghast. 
Robert Toye, 
George Tense. 
William Tillinghast. 
John Turner. 

Charles M. Vergerson. 

John F. Whitford. 
Moses G. Whitney. 
Abel Willis, Jr. 
Charles L. Wachter. 
Joseph M. Wilmarth. 
Leonard P. West. 
Matthias Waldron. 
George Waldron. 
Wallace Warren. 
John G. Wilson. 





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